Biomimetic Materials & Interface Research

Liquid overflow at solid edges is a familiar phenomenon in daily life. It may be commonly observed in situations of people walking, automobiles driving, or even aircrafts landing on the wet ground after raining, where flowing liquids in a wide flow velocity range tend to flow over a curved surface from the bottom and then separate at a certain point, sometimes leading to a splash of muddy water, which is normally undesirable.

Here, in this work, superwettability controlled overflow is presented. Superhydrophilicity enhances overflow and superhydrophobicity reduces overflow. The fundamental mechanism for the dynamic interaction between fluids and solid‐edges is revealed and several methods for preparing the surfaces of solid‐edges with superwettabilities are presented. The insights gained provide new opportunities to achieve controllable dynamic interaction at solid–liquid interfaces for various applications.

By Zhichao Dong (董智超), Lei Jiang (江雷)

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